EDITORIAL: Celebrating Our Brands

Two major events have happened in the last few days that call for celebrations because those platforms were used to reward excellence in business.

The first was the Chartered Institute of Marketing Ghana (CIMG) Awards Night during which the Chief Executive Officer of rlg Communications, Mr Roland Agambire, and the Chief Executive Officer of L’aine Services, Mrs Ellen Hagan, were adjudged Marketing Man and Woman 2011 respectively. Other institutions and individuals were also honoured for introducing marketing innovations to grow the economy.

On Wednesday, the Ghana Investment Promotion Council (GIPC) “outdoored” members of the Ghana Club 100 during which the Produce Buying Company (PBC) Ltd and rlg Communications were adjudged the first and second respectively in the Club.

In spite of the challenges in the economy, there are individuals and institutions that are striving to contribute their quota to nation building.

rlg and its Chief Executive have become household names because of the innovations they have introduced into the mobile telephony and computer market.

At present, rlg is offering skills training in ICT to some young people throughout the country, thanks to its assembly plant for mobile phones and laptops. Its target is to train 300,000 young people in the next few years.

Under the plan by the government to provide laptops to all public schools and help to train the pupils in ICT, rlg has been tasked to supply 60,000 laptops to the schools.

Certainly, this is a huge project that can make many entrepreneurs complacent but this has not affected rlg at all as it has not abandoned its core business of flooding the Ghanaian market with ICT products.

As the youth struggle to find decent jobs to keep body and soul together, the rlg initiative by Mr Agambire requires our support to succeed to create more jobs, wealth and prosperity in our society, especially for the benefit of the youth.

Another business that is making waves on the economic scene by providing top of the range training to business entities is L’aine Services. Just a few years into its creation, L’aine Services has become the organisation of choice for corporate bodies that want to sharoen the skills of its workers.

The Daily Graphic celebrates the achievements of these companies as well as that of PBC because of their phenomenal support for the national economy.

The good news is that all these enterprises are local companies whose owners and managements are doing things that defeat the notion that we cannot rely on our own resources to rebuild our economy. Certain people have become pessimistic because on our markets these days, we can find all kinds of imported items such as tooth pick and peanuts, used items like underwear, mattresses and cooking utensils when the opportunity exists for the country “to grow what it eats and eat what it grows”.

The Daily Graphic reiterates its position that the opportunity exists for the country to revive all sectors of the economy as a way of improving the standards of the people. We have not made any strides so far in that direction as the people appear to be content with accepting handouts from other countries.

The Daily Graphic warns that if care is not taken we shall lose respect in the comity of nations with our continuous reliance on others to feed us and provide for our other basic needs.

Far from calling on Ghana to become an island onto itself, we think that in areas where the country has comparative advantage, the government, captains of business and industry and the banks should team up to create an enabling environment for the private sector to thrive.

The PBC, for instance, has led recent efforts to improve the purchase of cocoa beans in the country even to this day when the purchasing regime has been liberalised, bringing in private sector participation.

The fortunes of the PBC have improved with the floating of the company’s shares on the Ghana Stock Exchange. This additional investment has helped the PBC to become a blue chip company that has topped the Club 100 for the past two years.

The annual reward for hard work is not enough. The companies need to be supported with a more friendly economic environment that help them to access credit to expand as well as a reliable power and tax regime.

The Daily Graphic calls on Ghanaians to patronise and celebrate our local brands so that they can grow to compete on the global stage.

Well done rlg, PBC and L’aine. May you lead the process towards a Better Ghana.